Look out for the Po Po

17042009

Another thing my daddy used to do on those long road trips is drive ridiculously fast like he was in a rush to get to where we were going.For those of us (which would be my mom and I) in the car while he was speeding, my dad would instruct us to, Look out for the Po Po.As a matter of fact, one of the traits I picked up from my father, as he taught me how to drive, is that of speed and as I left home for college, car packed, heading to my 2 hour away from home destination, my father knowing I was a woman after his own heart, told me, “the one thing you have to remember when you are on that highway is to look out for the Police so that you won’t get a speeding ticket.”My mother of course countered that with, “the reason speed limits are put into place is for safety, so there is no reason to rush, take your time and enjoy your ride.”Boy do I take my mother’s words to heed now.How does this apply to us in our destination toward our goal, our prize?Well as we are driving toward our prize, we must consciously not drive fast so that we don’t have to worry about looking out for the Po Po.You see if we take our time and not rush to get where we are going, we can actually enjoy the ride.Yes this is a call to slow down, to savior the moment and to smell the flowers instead of having to look out for the good ole’ Po Po!

Why should we slow down?You all know those little things that happen to us when we are rushing through anything to try and get it done quickly. Like those impulse purchase that I know I always regret and end up taking back to the store to return.Or how about when home builders, build houses in a hurry. I have heard all kinds of stories where builders have forgotten to put certain important things in to place that ultimately causes a structural fire or something of the like.Hopefully you get the point I am trying to make which is … ”haste make waste.”So when we start to execute our plan toward our goal, prize etc… We must not be in a rush toward getting it done but instead take our time and do it right. For when we rush, we often leave out details and sometimes it is the details that will make the difference in us getting to our dream, our goal, our prize.

“For the vision is yet for an appointed time;

but at the end it will speak, and it will not lie.

Though it tarries, wait for it;

because it will surely come, it will not tarry.”

– Habakkuk 2:3

If we continue using Esther for our example, Esther went through a year of preparation in order to even have an opportunity to meet with the king to be considered for queen. It was after Esther took that year to prepare that she had her moment and because she was ready at her appointed time she became queen.Now what if Esther rushed it and said, “this is ridiculous!It should not take me this long to get ready to meet any man!Tell the King I want to meet him TODAY!”What do you think would have happened?I’ll tell you what I think; Esther would have been bumped off of the list of opportunity.This moment as well as several after it, shows how Esther had quiet patience and knew the importance of timing.Taken from our January 30th blog.. Timing can sometimes be more important than the actual act itself.Learning how to be graceful while waiting is key!Patience gracefully means smiling in the face of frustration and trusting that the time will come to make that move. This is what I want you to remember as you travel toward your prize. Don’t rush, don’t worry about looking out for the Po Po, instead take your time and stop to smell the flowers along the way.This is a call to not hurry and to really appreciate the place you are in, on the way to where you are going.Yes the plan and the process is just as important as the destination. It is in those places between destinations that we learn the most and it is the process that prepares you for the destination. Just think of Esther for when we rush, we miss parts of the process we need to complete in order to get to the destination.

Here’s another example that may help. I would liken this to cooking that Thanksgiving Turkey.If you take it out of the oven before it’s time, it will not be done. If you try and turn up the temperature on the oven so as to rush the process you will more than likely see that your turkey has browned quickly, so quickly that the outside may look done, it may even burn a little but the inside will still be pink, trust me I have tried this. We definitely want that turkey to be thoroughly cooked when we put it on the table so we must be patient in the process and not rush it. So in the same vein of our Thanksgiving Turkey we too must take our time and enjoy the process of getting to our destination so that we too will be cooked all they way through when it is our time.This is definitely how preparation meets opportunity.

So ladies instead of looking out for the Po Po, this week we focus on us each stopping to smell the flowerswhich means to take time to appreciate or slow down and pay attention to what is going on around you. The question to ponder this week is, in what ways can you live in the present and learn to appreciate exactly where you are in the process of getting toward your prize?

“The plans of the diligent lead surely to plenty, but those of everyone who is hasty, surely to poverty.”

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Awesome! When we’re in the car and Newby sees a squad car he says, “Uh oh, there’s the Po Po!” LOL! I know that Patience is a fruit of the spirit, but it’s one of the more difficult ones for me to master because of our “I want it now” culture. Especially when the journey to our prize seems like it has more dandelions than tulips. Thanks for reminding me to slow it down and enjoy the journey, dandelions, weeds, tulips, roses, etc! jc